I followed, wondering what were the sources of the bitter hatred he so plainly bore for us; the reasons for his eagerness to be rid of us despite the commands of this woman who to him at least was goddess.
And by that curious human habit of seeking for the complex when the simple answer lies close, failed to recognize that it was jealousy of us that was the root of his behavior; that he wished to be, as it would seem he had been for years, the only human thing near Norhala; failed to realize this, and with Ruth and Drake was terribly to pay for this failure.
I looked down upon the pair, sleeping soundly; upon Ventnor lost still in trance.
"Sit," I ordered the eunuch.

"And turn your back to me." I dropped down beside Drake, my mind wrestling with the mystery, but every sense alert for movement from the black.

Glibly enough I had passed over Dick's questioning as to the consciousness of the Metal People; now I faced it knowing it to be the very crux of these incredible phenomena; admitting, too, that despite all my special pleading, about that point swirled in my own mind the thickest mists of uncertainty.

That their sense of order was immensely beyond a man's was plain.
As plain was it that their knowledge of magnetic force and its manipulation were far beyond the sphere of humanity.

That they had realization of beauty this palace of Norhala's proved--and no human imagination could have conceived it nor human hands have made its thought of beauty real.